How To Rewrite Your Story, Make Peace with the Past, and Break Old Patterns | Melissa Febos

Summary

Podcast Summary: How To Rewrite Your Story, Make Peace with the Past, and Break Old Patterns | Melissa Febos

Podcast: 10% Happier with Dan Harris
Episode Date: January 9, 2026
Guest: Melissa Febos

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles the transformative power of personal narrative: how the stories we tell ourselves—about who we are and why things happen to us—can be limiting, damaging, or just plain untrue. Dan Harris interviews Melissa Febos, acclaimed memoirist and professor, who shares her five-step framework for auditing and rewriting these stories so we can change entrenched patterns, make peace with our past, and build new possibilities. Drawing upon her own experiences with addiction, relationships, recovery, and writing, Febos provides actionable tools drawn from memoir writing, 12-step recovery, Internal Family Systems therapy, and her own hard-won insights.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The “Stories” We Tell Ourselves

• Why Our Internal Stories Matter ([00:00]–[10:03])

  • Dan introduces the episode explaining that suffering often comes from the stories we repeat about ourselves, both negative (“I’m unworthy”) and aggrandizing (“I’m always the victim”).
  • Melissa dispels the myth that memoirists are innate oversharers; in reality, many are quite secretive, driven to write out of the exhaustion of hiding:

    “Memoirists are some of the most secretive people… what happens is we tend to be the kind of folks who conceal parts of ourselves... Over time that gets kind of exhausting and heavy to carry.” (Melissa Febos, [04:43])

  • Writing memoir can finally “say the unspeakable thing” in private first, before (possibly) sharing it with the world.

• How False Stories Develop ([08:09]–[12:56])

  • We unconsciously craft stories to survive hardship, find identity, and avoid pain—often omitting our own responsibility or others’ failings.
  • These stories can be self-damning or self-flattering but tend to become limiting and unhelpful if left unexamined:

    “We sort of cast ourselves in a familiar role and then sort of lacquer over that with future retellings… long term, it compromises us because it forecloses the other possibilities for how we might be living or who we might be.” (Febos, [09:23])

Example Narratives: Relationships & Work

• Melissa’s honest examples ([10:20]–[13:20]):
  • Relationships: She long told herself she was a “great partner” who worked hard but just got unlucky. On closer inspection, she realized patterns of poor boundaries and enabling were at play.
  • Work: The story of being indispensable and victimized, only to see—after many jobs ended badly—that she was choosing overcommitment and resentment.

The Painful Realization & The Gap Before Change

• Recognizing our story is untrue is often devastating and mortifying, says Febos ([13:20]–[16:15]).
• Dan and Melissa discuss the “awkward stage” between self-awareness and real change, noting that defensiveness and resistance can persist for years.

  “Going from not knowing you need to change and knowing you need to change is like the hardest part in many ways. Or the longest distance.” (Febos, [14:33])

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The Five Steps for Rewriting Your Story

(Major segment. Practical walk-through begins at [29:03].)

1. Become Aware of Your Story

• Stop “doing,” sit with yourself, and plainly state the tale you’ve been unconsciously telling ([29:28]).
• Journaling, voice notes, or honest talking with a friend is highly recommended.

• “For me, the key is like: stop. Stop doing and just look... The main sort of meat of this step is just… telling ourselves what we've been telling ourselves but with awareness.”

2. Conduct an Audit / Inventory

([31:39]–[38:01])

• Separate the actual facts from narrative bias. What really happened? What’s missing?
• Use direct questions (from 12-step inventories):
  • e.g., Did I tell any lies today? How was I complicit in my experience? What am I avoiding? What’s the lie vs. the truth?
• Pretend you’re a neutral outside observer or helping a friend, to reduce emotional investment.

“We might need some questions for this… ‘How was I complicit in my experience?’… ‘What is the lie I’ve been telling myself?’… Almost every time I’ve asked myself that question, I already know.” (Febos, [31:45])

3. Revise and Integrate New Information

([40:06]–[43:01])

• Alter the story to include new insights and honest responsibility.
• Example: shifting from “I’m a great partner unlucky in love” to “I am codependent, overfunctioning, and people-pleasing.”
• Treat yourself as a character for clarity:
  • “When I’m writing a memoir, I want it to make sense to other people… I really have to look at as if I was reading someone else’s story.” (Febos, [43:01])

4. Build a To-Do List: Decide What to Do Differently

([51:18]–[56:46])

• Create clear action steps; don’t just try to “not do” the old behavior—actively practice replacements.
  • E.g., Use index cards (“Old behavior”/“New behavior”)
  • Script and rehearse new responses—role play with a friend, anticipate triggering situations, plan in advance.
  • Example: Learning to end relationships assertively after a lifetime of avoidance.
• Preparation and community support make success more likely.

5. Share with Trusted Others / Community

([57:05]–[62:08])

• Bringing others into the process is the critical, often-overlooked, final step.

  “Every single course of change I have tried to take in my life, I tried to do it alone first and failed. Every single thing I have ever needed to change about myself, truly tried to do it alone, failed miserably.” (Febos, [57:05])

• Vulnerability and support (“healing happens in relationships”) is crucial for change. Trusted others, groups, or therapists can help you stick to the new story.
• “We are stronger together… the odds of success are much greater than we think.” (Febos, [60:40])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the limitation of stories:

  “The story we tell ourselves is usually much more black and white, much more sweeping and more complacent… The fact that you can see through them and update them, as shitty as it may be, as painful and awkward as it may be, is just, I think, massively good news.” – Dan Harris ([20:03])

• On the excruciating gap between knowing and changing:

  “It's like having surgery with no anesthesia.” – Febos ([14:33])

• On repeated patterns & self-honesty:

  “What I am living, it’s not quite matching up. The common denominator is actually me. Whatever the story I’m telling, what I am living, it’s not quite matching up.” – Febos ([10:20])

• On community:

  “It is so hard to do this alone. We’re really not meant to and it just doesn’t work.” – Febos ([57:05])

• On radical honesty:

  “The people who I can sort of communicate with like that, as long as I have them, then I feel like the world isn’t constructed of lies.” – Febos ([38:20])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro & Setting the Theme: [00:00]–[04:14]
• Memoirist Stereotypes, Fear, and Secret-Keeping: [04:14]–[07:35]
• Painful Power of Self-Narrative: [07:47]–[10:03]
• Personal Examples (Work & Relationships): [10:03]–[13:20]
• Self-Honesty: The Devastation & Defensive Stage: [13:20]–[16:15]
• Awareness→Agency→Change Model: [17:04]–[21:39]
• Influences: 12-Step & Internal Family Systems: [21:39]–[28:41]
• Melissa’s 5 Steps Overview & Deep Dive: [29:03]–[62:08]
  • Step 1: [29:28]
  • Step 2: [31:39]
  • Step 3: [40:19]
  • Step 4: [51:18]
  • Step 5: [57:05]
• Febos’s Current Life: Recovery, Change, and Hope: [62:58]–[69:48]
• Concluding Discussion & Febos Bibliography: [69:53]–[72:45]

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Quick Reference: Melissa Febos' Five Steps

1. Become Aware – Surface the story you’re living by, in writing or conversation.
2. Conduct an Audit – Fact-check the narrative; ask sharp, inventory-style questions.
3. Revise the Story – Integrate new insights about what really went on.
4. Make a To-Do List – Decide on concrete, planned behavioral changes.
5. Share with Trusted Others – Seek community, support, and accountability.

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Additional Resources

• Melissa Febos’s Books Mentioned:
  • Whip Smart (memoir about her time as a dominatrix and addiction recovery)
  • Abandon Me (essays on relationships, identity)
  • Girlhood (essays on adolescent experience)
  • Bodywork (on the craft of memoir and personal narrative)
  • The Dry Season (celibacy, romance, change)
• Models Cited:
  • Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)
  • 12-Step Recovery methods

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Tone & Takeaway

The conversation is candid, warm, and often humorous—rooted in the idea that radical honesty (with oneself and others) is uncomfortable but freeing. Febos and Harris both normalize “doing dumb” and resisting change, yet the episode repeatedly underscores that transformation is not only possible, but natural once we see through unhelpful stories and embrace vulnerability with support.

“All dates can change, so can you.” (Dan quoting a record-store sign from his youth, [65:43])

Transcript

[A]

Foreign this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey. How we doing everybody? One of the most potent sources of human suffering is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Sometimes these stories are damning and demeaning. You know, I'm a bad person, I'm gross, I'm unworthy, whatever. Sometimes they're self aggrandizing or victim oriented. Why does bad stuff always happen to me? But the good news is you can learn how to revise and upgrade the stories you tell yourself. In other words, you can change. And today we're going to talk to somebody who has a playbook for doing this and has run this playbook many times in her own life to great success. Melissa Febos is a professor at the University of Iowa and a renowned memoirist who has written several books including Bodywork and the Dry Season. We talk about how to audit your personal narrative with some simple questions. Her five step method for rewriting unhelpful stories. Why community and vulnerability are required for real change. In other words, why it's much harder to do this work alone. And we talk about Melissa's own experiences running this playbook. As I said earlier with regard to her relationships and her addictions. Just a quick reminder, it's not too late to sign up for the New Year's Meditation Challenge over on my new app, 10% with Dan Harris. The challenge is free and it's led by the renowned teacher Joseph Goldstein. You can sign up for the [e-mail]. we'll get started with Melissa Febos right after this. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. The new year does not require a new you, but maybe just a less burdened you. And therapy can help more easily identify what is weighing you down and holding you back by offering an unbiased perspective to help you understand your relationships, your motivations and your emotions. I have found this to be true over and over throughout my life, which is why I continue to do therapy. Everybody in my house has a therapist. We are big believers in the Harris household and of course in the larger 10% Happier Cinematic Universe. In the benefit of therapy, BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched online with a qualified therapist. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] happier that's better h l p.com happier it's that time of year to take care of you. And who better to help you do that than the top voices in well being On Audible, you can level up your parenting, career, finances, sleep, relationships or mindset. The Audible well Being collection has everything to inspire and support you every step of the way. Hear the latest from bestselling authors Brene Brown and Jay Shetty, Master Nutrition with chef Jamie Oliver, hear nature sleep sounds from the sleeping World, or get on top of your finances with Rachel Rogers. Plus, you'll find all the best parenting guides like Raising Good Humans. With this at your fingertips, you can imagine more for yourself and your family. By the way, I'm creating an Audible original with my great friend, the Great Meditation Teacher 7A Selassie, which will be out in a few months. So go Audible. Kickstart your well being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30 day trial at audible.come n P U R C E N T that's 10%. Membership is $14.95 a month. After 30 days, cancel anytime. Listening to the top voices in well being sounds like self care to us. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Melissa Febos, welcome to the show.

[B]

Thanks for having me.

[A]

Pleasure. I've been reading this. As you probably know, I get a prep doc or preparation doc before every interview, and you and Marissa Schneiderman, who's our senior producer and she's producing this episode, put together a great document to help prepare me for this conversation. And I read with interest that you in some ways are not a natural memoirist in that, like, left to your own devices, you're not particularly introspective.

[B]

It's true, it's true. I think that's actually a great misconception of a lot of memoirists. Folks who don't write or don't know any memoirists intimately tend to assume that we're kind of inherent oversharers, right? Or we love attention or we can't wait to tell you all of our secrets. But actually, I think it's usually the opposite. Memoirists are some of the most secretive people I've ever met. And I think what happens is we tend to be the kind of folks who conceal parts of ourselves and are very careful about sort of what we let other people see in addition to sort of keeping real secrets. And over time that gets kind of exhausting and heavy to carry. So we start to slowly develop this kind of counter impulse to want to put it all down or say the unspeakable thing. I think all people have that impulse Right. We kind of want to say the unspeakable thing just as much as we fear it. And so writing memoir is kind of the perfect antidote to that lifestyle, because you get to tell everyone everything, but you do it totally alone in a room with no one watching you. And you can take, like, 10 years to do it if you want to.

[A]

Yes. I'm trying to think if that describes me. I guess maybe I'm a memoirist. I've written one, and I have another one coming out.

[B]

I would say you are. I would say you are.

[A]

Yeah, I am actually a little bit more of a exhibitionist and oversharer by nature. That spills into my memoir. But I guess if I think about the two books, one written, the other almost written, I am actually revealing things that I have not hitherto revealed. So there's something there.

[B]

Mm, yeah, it makes sense. I mean, there's obviously variation across the genre, but I do think for a lot of us, the juiciest parts, like the fun parts of writing, are also kind of the scary parts, where we're revealing something and maybe we're looking at it for the first time ourselves, and we're like, oh, wow, I've actually always known that about myself, but I also didn't know it at the same time because I never put words to it. I would also say that I identify as an addict. I've been clean and sober for over 20 years, and so I have a really strong instinct toward what feels good. And I. Obviously that sort of applies to all people, but to me, it's like, to a catastrophic degree, where I really sort of. Anything that sort of gets my yummy brain chemicals going, I want to do it. Until something breaks, like external, internal, whatever, I'll just keep doing it. And self reflection is definitely not one of those things. Self reflection is, like, slow. It offers only longitudinal rewards. It takes a lot of work. Like, it's not a high, you know? So I've had to really sort of build it into my life for my own survival, which I think is also what I mean about being a memoirist, being kind of counterintuitive for me.

[A]

No, that all lands. Just to be clear, I was laughing at your description of doing things that feel good until everything breaks. Not because I was judging you, but just because I see myself in that and that.

[B]

That was my assumption. I could tell the quality of the laughter was recognition.

[A]

I was laughing with you, not at you, for sure. One of your main contentions that comes through in the notes I have in front of Me that you and Marissa worked on is that most of our pain as an individual comes from the shitty stories we're telling to ourselves about ourselves.

[B]

You know, this has proved true across my whole life, but also, you know, I work with memoirists and writers and people who want to write their own stories. And I've also seen it in that form revealed over and over and over again, as well as just my friends, the people I know, my family members. I mean, a lot of times it is a shitty story, but sometimes it's an aggrandizing story, too. I've definitely had, like, stories I've told myself about myself that were eliding the problematic behaviors that I had or the ways that I was complicit in my own unhappiness. Right. And I think it's just kind of the way the psyche works, right, is that as we're living, we're constructing a narrative of our experience. You know, and especially when there's patterns, we make a story out of it and we say, oh, I just can't find the right person in my love life, or everybody always takes advantage of me at work, and I get totally overworked and burnt out and I get used up, you know, and we sort of cast ourselves in a familiar role and then sort of lacquer over that with future retellings and more and more retellings. And I think there's a purpose to that story. It helps us survive difficult experiences. It sort of helps us in a momentary way, and it gives us a solid sense of our identity. Right. But I don't think it's necessarily the truest version of our story. I think it, in the interest of helping us survive and experience, it leaves out some of the painful parts or the compromising parts, and sometimes even the parts that make the people we love look bad, who we don't want to hold accountable, whatever we don't want to look at or think we can't handle in the moment. But when we hold onto that story long term, it compromises us because it sort of forecloses the other possibilities for how we might be living or who we might be. And we really never get to look at those parts that we left out in the kind of initial draft in our mind.

[A]

Maybe you already listed some examples, but are there examples of unconstructive stories either aggrandizing or deprecating, that you were telling yourself historically about yourself? You mentioned something about something professional and something romantic. Were those actually bits of memoir?

[B]

Oh, yeah. I mean, how much time do you Have. I've been through this process many, many times. Most of my research is empirical. Right. You know, I'm a serial sort of memoirist and personal essayist. And I would say everything I've ever written sort of fits into this rubric and is an experience that was difficult while I was living it. I created a certain story about it, I stuck to the story and I kept living the same kind of unpleasant or unhappy experience until I hit a kind of breaking point. And then I thought, something's wrong here. Like the common denominator is actually me. Whatever the story I'm telling, like what I am living, it's not quite matching up. The ones I was referring to was, you know, my most recent memoir is a book called the Dry Season. And it's about a year that I spent celibate after 20 years of non stop monogamous relationships. And I had a story about myself that was actually like a pretty happy story. The story was, I'm a great partner. I work really hard in my relationships. I've been to a lot of therapy and 12 step recovery, but my relationships just weren't working out. And I had this one particularly catastrophic relationship that was really like a hurricane that swept through my life. And on the heels of it, I was in my mid-30s. I thought, okay, I do feel tired, but that doesn't mean I've been doing the right kind of work in my relationships. Let me take a look at, at this story I've been telling myself and see if it's actually true, if it actually matches up with what I've been doing for these last 20 years. And like, to my sort of surprise, it wasn't true at all. I had been working really hard, but kind of in the wrong direction. I've had a lot of issues around work for this, but I would say probably the one that comes first to mind is that I used to kind of have a story about myself, that I am such a hard worker. I always end up being sort of indispensable in my jobs and people depend on me a lot. And then there's too much pressure and I feel unappreciated. And then the only option is for me to like quit and run away. And it sort of always ends badly. You know, this was sort of a similar story as the way I related to my romantic relationships. Do you, Unsurprisingly, and I hit a point where I was like, you know what, I have a great job, I have pretty great colleagues. Like, I don't think I have an extreme situation Here, like what am I doing that's contributing to the story I'm telling myself and how might I revise it so that I can behave differently and have a different kind of experience? And obviously the process is like much longer than just asking that question. But that question is the start we're.

[A]

Going to get into the process. There are five steps at least from what I can see, that I'm really interested in before we get into that. You're talking about this in a light way. This realization that your story and in these cases they're somewhat self aggrandizing stories which that they weren't true. Like that's a monumental achievement to be able to see that. And I just don't want to let that go uncommented upon.

[B]

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, in the moment it's actually pretty devastating.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

I mean, it's sort of like the door opens. Right. It's hopeful too, because if I've been wrong about the story I'm telling myself, then there's other options. Right. Then I might be able to have some control over the experience that I'm having. But at the same time it's a bit mortifying and scary to have been lying to yourself, you know, and I think we all do. But it's still quite shocking when we face it and we've been really committed to something and our sort of denial starts to fall away a little bit. I mean, these are really intense reckoning points in my life that I probably could never have imagined writing about in the moments when they were happening because I felt so humbled and sometimes ashamed. And it usually isn't until years later that I'm comfortable being like, let me go talk to a bunch of strangers about this experience.

[A]

You know, I mean, I've been through similar experiences and you say humbled and ashamed and I can see myself in both of those. But often for me, and this is not flattering, it's a protracted and by protracted could be many years long period of time defensiveness too.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of the worst part. Right. It's like when you're awake to what's happening and you have some degree of self awareness but you're fighting it. It's like having surgery with no anesthesia. At least when you're in denial, you're like, God, I'm just a hapless victim. Why does this keep happening to me? And you can really feel like the hero of your story when you know that you're culpable and Then it can be quite excruciating. And I've definitely sat in that phase for a long time too. I heard someone say recently that the distance between not knowing that you need to change and changing is so much greater than the distance between knowing that you need to change and changing. Right. Going from not knowing you need to change and knowing you need to change is like the hardest part in many ways. Or the longest distance. And even if it gets really uncomfortable after that, I think if you're a person who's open to that in any way, it's sort of inevitable that it will happen eventually.

[A]

Yeah, I would agree that the longest distance is going from denial to self awareness. But yeah, there's this cultish stage, this awkward stage that you're pointing at between self awareness and like, I might be misusing this term, but like self actualizing or like, sure, you know, were you operationalize the insights. And I'm actually working on a chapter in my next book now where it's like, I do incredibly dumb in this chapter and I know I'm doing dumb. And like, in the earlier chapters I didn't know. So it was embarrassing in hindsight, but this was like dramatic irony. But I'm both the audience and the character.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's brutal. I mean, you're definitely writing memoir because that is what memoir is made of. Yeah, I've had that experience a lot of times just making a decision and being like, I want to do this. I want the short term benefits of doing this. I know it's probably going to blow up in my face because it has before and I'm going to do it anyway. You know, Like, I'm not proud of it, but like, as someone, as I said before, who has a really addictive personality, when I get into a habitual behavior or way of like, coping with something, I can spin my wheels for a really long time trying to get out of that. Even if there are just like pretty minor short term benefits to it and sometimes even none. I will just keep doing it for a while after that. Like, it's really. Change is not easy. I need like a system in order to do it.

[A]

One of the things I was really interested in in reading up on you is what you have to say about how this process of rewriting your story works on a psychological level to change us. From what I can tell, the model seems to be like, awareness leads to agency, agency leads to urgency. Am I understanding that correctly? And if so, can you unpack it?

[B]

The first step is definitely looking at what is actually happening, looking at the story that you're telling yourself, becoming willing to see something that I haven't been seeing. You know, like, there really is that willingness is sort of key. People can, as we were just saying, be really, really uncomfortable and still be unwilling to change. We've all seen it. We can stay in it for years. We really have to be willing to, like, do something different. And then I think we can look at the past and look at the story that we're telling ourselves and see if they really match. And usually they don't. Right. If we're having a repetitive, unpleasant experience, they don't quite match up. We're either telling the story is aggrandizing us, or sometimes it's degrading us too much, which is also, like, grandiose in a different kind of way. But we're leaving something out, and then that's when the agency comes in. Because first we can sort of update the story of ourselves, our understanding of our situation. We can put in the thing that we're leaving out. Like, for me, this might be, oh, I'm, like, volunteering too much at work. I am obsessed with becoming indispensable because it makes me feel needed. And I like that feeling. Right? But here I am blaming other people for using me, or, like, I am being overly accommodating in my relationships and trying to be perfect. And then I'm blaming my partners for, like, controlling me. When I'm leaving out the part that, like, I'm making some choices here about what I'm doing, nobody's forcing me to do it. And when I fill that part in, it gives me more agency because I see the choices I'm making, and I'm able to make different choices. And I would say, you know, if I can generalize in kind of a broad way, the story we tell ourselves is usually. Usually, like, much more black and white, much more sweeping and more complacent. Right? We see ourselves as a victim when actually we're making choices that are contributing to the experience that we're having. Right? And I think, like, once we go through the awkward phase of trying to implement different behaviors, it all starts to work together in a way that updates our whole sense of ourselves and our self image and our identity really kind of changes. And I stopped thinking of myself as some someone that people use and don't appreciate. And I think of myself as someone who values her own time and makes conscious choices about how she wants to be of service to other people. It's a very different story and one that has a lot more sort of power of decision making and choice in it.

[A]

I mean, this is such good news because, I mean, these stories we're telling about ourselves, positive or negative stories, they're just massively limiting. And the fact that you can see through them and update them, as shitty as it may be, as painful and awkward as it may be, is just, I think, massively good news.

[B]

Yeah, it is. It is. But I think that willingness part is really key too, because most people don't think of themselves as telling themselves a story that feels offensive to a lot of people. Right. They're like, no, this is my life. This is my experience. This is my truth. Right. But you're also choosing that. And I think this is where my perspective as a memoirist really comes in. Because writing memoir makes you realize there are so many ways you can tell a story. And I think we know this a little bit intuitively because for every event, think of, like, family history. For every big family holiday or big family fight, there are as many true versions of that story as there were people present. And they're not wrong, even though they might contradict each other, because truth is subjective. We all tell ourselves a story about what happened. Even now, as you were saying, I'm talking about this in kind of a lighthearted way because I've made friends with this process, but that's not how I saw it. When it happened, when it happened, I thought my life was over. Like many, many times. I thought I could never change. I was devastated. I thought I was a terrible person. But, like, the story can change. Realizing that opening ourselves up to that is scary and humbling. But I think you're right. It is really, really good news. We're so much more empowered if we're looking at it that way.

[A]

I just want to promise the listener again that we're going to get pretty granular and it does not require you having to write a memoir. But let me just stay at a higher level, just for a second before we get into the nitty gritty. I understand you've been pretty deeply influenced and you referenced your sobriety by both 12 step and a kind of therapy called Internal Family Systems. Can you say a little bit about each?

[B]

I was raised by a psychotherapist, so I've had a lot of different kinds of therapy. And I've always been interested in psychology, even when I wasn't interested in self reflection. I'm just interested in how people's minds work. Ifs Internal Family Systems Therapy. It's the Kind of therapy that my mother practices and trains people in, and we've done workshops together, and it really sort of draws upon lots of previous models of therapy. You can find traces of it in Freud and Jung. And I think probably most models of therapy have some version of thinking about how to mediate between what might be called the unconscious or the parts of our psyche that we are unaware of, but that are contributing to our actions. And in ifs, we might call these exiles. They're sort of the parts of us that were wounded when we were children and that we sort of sent away inside of ourselves because they were scary and we chose not to deal with them. But a lot of our adult behaviors end up being guided by these parts that were sort of exiled. Right? And the way the therapy model works is the therapist helps the patient try to go into sort of dialogue and conversation with the different parts of their psyche. And in addition to exiles, there are also managers, firefighters. There's a few different parts, right? But the goal is to sort of draw in the parts of ourselves that have been exiled and integrate them into the psyche so that we can be led by our higher self, so that we aren't being sort of driven by the parts of ourselves that are kind of hidden in the dark. And that very much sort of speaks to my experience of 12 step recovery, which is, you know, I'm in multiple 12 step programs and have worked the 12 steps. A lot of times. I would describe that process also of sort of surveying our past and our past behavior so that we can fill in the gaps of our own agency. Where did I hurt other people? How was I complicit in the end of these relationships, that sort of thing. And then we sort of tell our story to another person and make it visible to someone we trust. And then we go about trying to amend our behavior. And sometimes that means, like, apologizing to people from our past. A lot of times it just means practicing awareness of what in 12 step language are called character defects or character defenses. And that might be workaholism, people pleasing, competitiveness. Those are just some of mine. And then over time, we sort of turn the volume down on the character defenses that have caused us problems in the past. And we try to replace them with more positive behaviors, right, that aren't gonna create wreckage or hurt us or other people. And so I think the way that I think about personal change and the way that it's been reflected in my experience of writing memoirs draws pretty heavily on both of those models. And I've been Really interested in the way that I see sort of models for change across discipline and culture and time. They have these really common elements of us surveying our past, telling the truth to other people, and then trying to do something different. Right. Whether you're looking at psychology or religion or creative practice.

[A]

Well said.

[B]

I.

[A]

Notwithstanding my history of cocaine use, I have never done 12 step work. And over the last couple of years, I've gotten. I have a newish friend. I won't say his whole name because there's a reason why they use the word anonymous in these programs. But Danny is his first name. Really good friend. He has really lifted the curtain for me on. Because we'll have dinners together and he'll tell me about what's going on in his various 12 step programs. And there's this thing that you'll be familiar with that I wasn't really familiar with, like inventories. And so it's not like. I mean, maybe it's something you do early on, but Danny's been in recovery for decades. This is really like. For active issues that may not have anything to do with the original addiction per se. You're doing an inventory. Can you describe what that is?

[B]

Absolutely. I do a daily inventory. And I think when you first come into recovery from whatever it is, the first inventory is sort of the mother load, right? Cause you've never done one. So you're doing an inventory of your whole life. But the idea being that after you've sort of done that and kind of cleaned house, you keep it up as a regular practice for the rest of your life, basically, so that you catch things before they start kind of warping your thinking and you develop your little story around it, you know? So for me, I have a little text thread with a couple friends of mine, and we do a little inventory and there's a series of questions we ask ourselves. And the questions include, did I tell any lies today? Did I act on any sort of bad behaviors today? Did I do any esteemable acts today? Did I keep any secrets today? There's like eight or nine questions, and we answer them. And then, you know, there's always a little something, right? Sometimes there's a big something, and then that's a little sort of alarm, right? Because then you go, take some action. If I find that I was. A lot of times it'll just be, you know, I was a little snippy with my wife when we were traveling yesterday because I was tired, right? And I'll be like, all right, I guess I'll go apologize or I've been really avoiding my email because I don't want to respond to this person. And, like, it becomes harder to keep doing that once I've admitted it to myself and to another person, you know? So the inventory is sort of like psychological and maybe to some extent, like an ethical hygiene that keeps me from collecting the grimy sort of feeling bad about myself, harmful behaviors that can really accrue over time.

[A]

You literally took the words out of my brain. I was thinking interpersonal and intrapersonal hygiene. It's like a haircut. You're just not letting it grow out.

[B]

Yeah. And it prevents conflict with other people, too, because it forces me to admit to myself, like, oh, I've been withdrawing from this friend of mine because we have this. This dynamic that I don't love. And it just forces me to be like, all right, like, what do I actually want to do about this? Do I want to talk to them? Do I want to end the relationship? Do I want to get over it? What can I do here that has a little more integrity than just avoiding? Because avoiding is one of my old behaviors that has caused a lot of problems in my past.

[A]

Yeah, but it is so seductive. I mean, I find myself sliding into the warm bath of avoidance all the time.

[B]

Oh, my God. So tempting. It's really my go to, like, oh, could I just not do anything and deal with it that way? Yum. But it just causes more problems down the road. I've seen it in my own life over and over again.

[A]

Okay, now, as promised, we're going to get into Melissa's five steps for rewriting your story. We have covered some of these, but my experience, I suspect you would share this view. When it comes to personal development, repetition is your friend. So first step from what I'm seeing, easier said than done. But it is to become aware of the story you're telling about yourself.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. I think the first step is just looking. Like, stop acting. I am like, a person who is very busy. I like to be in action. I've been told that I am a human doing, not a human being. And so for me, the key is like, stop. Stop doing and just look. Right. And for me, because I'm a writer, I like to write it out. And this is not writing a memoir. This is like just writing in my journal, which I think is a good tool for this. Not required. Talking through it with another person can be really helpful. I think externalizing it is useful because then we actually can, like, look at it. But in any case, the Main sort of meat of this step is just sort of telling ourself what we've been telling ourself, but with awareness. So here's the way I see this part of my life where I see this area, whether it's work or it's dating or it's my relationship with a parent or with a child. This or for me, with exercise was a big one for me. What is the story? What is my relationship to this and what's been happening? And just sort of lay it out and then actually look at it and think, okay, can I just look at this as a person who's divested a bit from it being true and just kind of critically read it maybe for the first time. So I think that's pretty much step one.

[A]

And thank you for saying this. I should have said it earlier. This process of, you know, becoming aware of. Of your stories does not require writing a memoir, which is a Titanic pain in the ass, as you and I both know. You know, it could be journaling, it could be. You didn't say it here, but I believe you've said in the past. It could be voice notes, voice memos. It could be talking to a friend. It's just trying to get some sort of the best of your ability, journalistic take on what your inner tales are.

[B]

I think that's the key, the journalistic take, to just be like, can I look at this sort of coldly, without my emotional attachment to it, and just see what is the narrative that I'm holding here and let me take a look at it.

[A]

Okay, so step number two is conducting an audit. What does that mean?

[B]

So this is basically the inventory, right? This is sort of what actually happened, whether it's in the past or it's ongoing. Can I actually describe what happened in a way that is separate, separate from that narrative? Like, slow down and try to fill in the pieces that have been missing. And we might need some questions for this. Like, that's why. Then the inventory that I use in my 12 step work has questions. Because if I just ask myself, like, did I do anything today that I should think about? I'm very happy to be like, I don't think so. But if I ask myself, did you tell any lies today? That's very specific, right? And I'll be like, oh, you know what? Actually gave some false praise to a bunch of people today because I was just schmoozing or what? You know what I mean? And like, maybe that's okay, but I don't love it. So this is good. To come up with some questions, maybe ahead of time. Some good questions are, how was I complicit in my experience? What are the choices that I made here? How have I been making them? Am I letting anyone else off the hook? Who is accountable for their own behaviors? Or what am I avoiding? Maybe what is the lie I've been telling myself? In my inventories, it's always, what is the lie? What is the truth? Those are the last questions I answer for myself. What is the lie I've been telling myself? Which sounds presumptuous, right? But I will say that almost every time I've asked myself that question, I already know. Like, I already know there's something I'm leaving out. Because it's always the same kind of thing. It's like I'm blaming other people. When I am the person who keeps volunteering or choosing something, I'm acting like something has been compulsory when actually I'm choosing it. That's usually the thing for me, right? Or I'm telling myself I'm doing something for one reason, when actually it's another. Like, I have this past experience I referred to earlier where I told myself for years that I exercised a lot because I was a really healthy person. Like I was exercising for my health and I wasn't. I was exercising because of the way it made me feel psychologically. Right? And I actually compromised my body in many ways by doing that. So sometimes you have to dig a little bit to get to this, but sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's right there and it's really obvious. And the key here, I think, is to like, think about yourself like another person. Sometimes when I'm trying to see something I'm missing in my own behavior or experience, I think, what if one of my students or a friend of mine or my younger sibling came to me with this problem and described it as I've described it to myself. What would I see that they can't see? And sometimes that little mind trick works for me because it pops me out of my emotional attachment to how I've.

[A]

Been framing things I have found very useful. You have a question in here. How was I complicit in my own experience? My executive coach, Jerry Colonna, often phrases it. How am I complicit in the conditions I claim I don't want?

[B]

Yes, that is good.

[A]

It's really good. Having said that, what if you are somebody with. I don't know if I'm using the terminology correctly here, but low self esteem or you have a tendency to Blame yourself to a catastrophic extent. Are questions like this perhaps not for you?

[B]

No, I think the same questions actually apply because I think that's a story. Right. I'm the worst. It's all my fault. I'm unlovable. Those things are almost never true. I would even say that they're probably never true. Like what happens between people intrapersonally is always a collaboration between the people. It's never just one person's fault or very, very rarely, if ever so. Right. And so I think the ways that someone with, with low self esteem or a negative story about themselves is complicit is that they're heaping all the blame onto themselves. It's not all their fault. Sometimes they have to admit to themselves that other people are also playing a part in it. And maybe some work needs to be done in those relationships. Maybe the job needs to be changed. Maybe the lack of confidence is the problem here. Whether it's a positive story or a negative story. It's still the same problem of sort of scale and grandiosity. Right. It's this black and white kind of thinking that is almost never sort of what actually holds the truth of a situation.

[A]

Friend of mine, her dad was in, having some struggles and really down on himself and she baked him a cake and put the words fuck everyone on it.

[B]

Uh huh.

[A]

Which I think helped get him out of. It's all my fault.

[B]

It's really true. I mean it's so painful. But there is a way that it's convenient to blame yourself. I've actually had this in the past. There were a few situations, both when I was a kid and then also when I was early in my teaching career where I just didn't like the idea of being a victim. It felt vulnerable and scary to me. I didn't like the idea of someone else having control or power mistreating me. And so I had a story that it was my fault when that happened. Like I had a colleague who was kind of a bully early in my career and she would make these kind of like passive aggressive digs at me and do weird, undermining, competitive things. And for six months maybe, I would say, I don't know, the energy's kind of weird between us, but maybe I'm not communicating myself clearly or maybe I did something and I had a therapist at the time that was like, I can see that you're really reluctant to admit that this person is mistreating you, but until you face up to that fact, you're not going to be able to change it or demand better behavior. It really comes out of experience that I say this because only when we sort of put everyone's behavior where it actually goes and hold other people, everyone, all the adults in the room, responsible for their own behavior, that's when we can really change the situation.

[A]

Can we? Sidebar for a second on something you said a couple minutes ago about how you notice giving out a lot of false praise. I find that terrifying, not only because I do it, but because how do you, as an individual, know what to believe about your work or your place in the world when people are giving out false praise as a kind of currency all the time?

[B]

I know, it's really, really tough. I mean, it's really also the kind of plasma that we're all swimming in. I've had this conversation with other writers because, like, the people who review books are mostly writers. And so we're all kind of, like, in the mix, getting reviewed, reviewing each other's books. And, like, it's really obvious that it sort of behooves everyone to just be nice all the time, right? But then you can't really trust anyone. I don't have a perfect answer for this, but what I do know is that the people I give false praise to or the people who I suspect of giving it to me, they're like three rings out in terms of, like, my spheres of intimacy, right? They're not my close people. My close people who I talk to on the phone and spend actual time with and go to when I have a real question. These are people that I have cultivated real honesty with and where I know that they know that they can trust me not to punish them if they say something to me that's hard for me to hear. Cultivating at least that small cohort of people who are willing to tell you the thing that's gonna hurt, you know? And usually those are people I would say I love, where we have mutual intimacy and we love each other, right? Where the relationship can weather saying, I think you can do better, or, like, you know what? You weren't being your best self in that moment. And, like, I love you, and I want you to be your best self. The people who I can sort of communicate with like that as long as I have them, then I feel like the world isn't constructed of lies. But I still don't love the feeling of going out and being like, oh, my God, I loved your book, which I haven't actually read. Like, you know, everybody does it at least a little bit and doesn't contribute to my self esteem, I will say that.

[A]

No, it's a great thing to monitor. I'm glad you brought it up. Okay, so step one, become aware of the story. Step two, conduct an audit. Step three, revise your story to integrate new information.

[B]

Yeah, basically in this part, we're filling in the holes of the things we've missed. We've done our inventory, we've asked ourselves the questions. Almost certainly we've come up with some things that we've left out. Some part like I'm blaming myself all of the time when actually someone else at work has been mistreating me. Or I'm blaming my partners for being controlling, but actually I'm being overly accommodating before they're even asking me to do so. And I update that story. And so in my recent book, the Dry Season, I went through this process in a pretty explicit way during that year of celibacy. This was way before I was writing a memoir about it. When I went and did the inventory, I thought, oh, wow, I've been pursuing and seducing people that aren't actually great matches for me because I like how it feels. I like the psychological high and the once I'm in relationships, I'm doing a lot of over functioning people pleasing, kind of codependent behaviors. And then I'm feeling suffocated and miserable and like the other person's trying to control me and I have no choice but to break up with them and run away from them. And the story I'd been telling myself, if you remember, was that I was a great partner and I worked so hard in my relationships and I had this huge emotional vocabulary, like what was wrong with these people? So I fill in the holes. And I think, you know what, I do work really hard at relationships, but I work really hard at jobs that no one is asking me to do and that actually compromise who I am and hide what I actually need in order to have a sustainable, happy relationship. And so I had to really update this story, which was pretty aggrandizing. And the new story was that I was actually quite codependent. I was sort of capitulating and manipulating people, trying to avoid conflict and appear perfect. And it was totally sinking my relationships. And there was good stuff in there too. I was a thoughtful partner. I did work hard, but the sort of toiling at the center of my dynamic was actually preventing real intimacy from happening. And so I had this very new story, which was much less flattering, but showed a lot of room for improvement, which was good news.

[A]

Yes. Which brings us to the to do list. We'll talk about that in a second. But I do want to reference something you say or that I'm reading about you in my notes in front of me, which is actually, this is where, even though I can't stress strongly enough, nobody has to write a memoir if they don't want to. Treating yourself as a character in your own book can be really helpful.

[B]

Yeah. I don't know if you've had this experience. I'm interested to hear if you have. But I think it's like when we're walking around and telling ourselves the narrative of our lives, we're totally blended with that character. But when I'm writing a memoir, I want it to make sense to other people. I don't want my readers to see things that I don't see about myself, which means I have to get to, like, a higher level of self awareness than maybe I hold myself to in my daily life. And so I really have to look at it as if I was reading someone else's story and thinking, what does this person not see? What is this person missing? And what could she do differently to have a different experience? And it's pretty surprising because there is always something like, our friends come to us and they complain about the same things, and we tell them what we see, but it's careful and loving, you know, but you can see them really clearly. You can be like, well, if they just stopped picking these unavailable people, or if they just stopped volunteering to pick up extra shifts, they wouldn't be so tired all the time. You know, it's usually pretty obvious. And I think the tricky part isn't recognizing the thing that we're not seeing. The tricky part is looking at objectifying ourselves. Like, looking at ourselves like a character looking at ourselves as if we were someone else who was not sort of wed to the story we're telling ourselves about it. You can't just flip a switch. Right. I think it really is sort of like you kind of have to go through the process that we're talking about here. Right. And I do think for me, externalizing it is really helpful because when I'm reading my notes, I'm literally looking at something else. It's not me. I'm over here reading. So it's something I've gotten better at over the years of writing. But I don't know. When you're writing, do you ever have moments where you're like, oh, man, Dan really messed up here. Or like, wow, he really could have, like, Handled that one differently or something as you're writing the story?

[A]

Yeah, I can't emphasize enough. I'm actually a pretty inexperienced writer, and I didn't write my first book until my early 40s, and I'm in my mid-50s now, so I'm pretty new to this. And I've spent eight years on my. My memoir, which hopefully fucking comes out sometime in the next 18 months. It's been a nightmare. And what has allowed me to have some scintilla of optimism about the fact that it might come out is a very good friend of mine. I've been writing these, like, drafts that are crazily long and boring and stupid and no structure. And a friend of mine, Jonathan Glick, came in and really helped me clean it up. And he will often. I was talking to him yesterday because he'll just check in on me. I'll send him a chapter, and he'll often say, like, what is your character thinking in this moment? And just those words, what is your character thinking? Is really helpful, and I think could be scalable from writing a memoir to journaling and thinking about how to do life better. Your own life.

[B]

That is such a good tip. Yeah. I feel like, you know, the meat of a memoir class and any creative writing class is sort of of everyone reading one person's work and commenting on it. And in my classes, I'm very strict about everyone has to refer to the narrator as the character and never by the writer's name or you. We're always talking about the character, the mother character, the brother character, the partner, you know? And it's been such great conditioning for me, because then when I go to my own work, and I know this happens for my students, too, then I'm thinking the character, right? And it's actually worked sort of in this amazing. Almost like a kind of crystal ball, in a way. I remember I was writing my second book once. I was in this horrible relationship, but I was, like, really trying to make it work. And I was writing the story of it in a memoir, and I was trying to write it into a happy ending, and I was trying to live it into a happy ending, too. It was terrible. It was never going to work out, but I did not know that yet. And as I was writing, I was just fully in the process, you know, like, really forgot about sitting in the chair was just working. The way that people imagine writing always feels, but how it almost never feels. And I had this moment where I was like, oh, my God, this character really needs to end this relationship. This is never gonna work out. And then I stopped and I was like, weird. That's so funny because I am clearly gonna ride this thing into the sunset. And I went back to trying to force it, but it got in there like a little seed of it. And of course, when it didn't work out, I was like, oh, interesting. The writer brain could see the truth while the person living it wasn't ready yet.

[A]

Yep. Funny how that works. Coming up, Melissa Febos talks about the last two steps for rewriting your story. Plus we get into some examples of how she applied all five steps in her own life. Here's a problem I have I like to eat. I especially like to eat healthy food. But I don't shop unless I'm forced and I don't cook unless I'm forced. So this is my problem. But very recently, an awesome solution dropped into my lap. It's called hungryroot and it is an incredibly easy way to eat healthy. Hungerroot basically works like a a personal nutrition coach and shopper in one by planning, recommending and shopping for everything for you. They take care of the weekly grocery shopping, recommending healthy groceries tailored to your tastes, nutrition preferences and health goals. I did the onboarding at hungryroot. It was super quick. Very easy. A few days later I got a huge box on my doorstep with healthy frozen meals that I can literally just pop into the microwave and eat in the middle the of of a busy day. They're delicious. Huge fan. Also in the box, a bunch of snacks and other groceries like salad, ingredients, etc. Etc. All delicious, all fresh, all healthy. Take advantage of this exclusive offer for a limited time, get 40% off your first box plus get a free item in every box for life. Go to hungryroot.com happier and use the code happier. That's hungryroot. H U N G R-Y-R-O-O-T.com happier and use the code HAPPIER to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. My financial goal, My financial resolution for 2026 is the same one I've had for many, many years and yet never mastered. And that is to reduce money stress. You've heard me say this before. I am extremely lucky in my life financially and yet I still worry about it a lot. One tool that I have found very helpful is to have all my information in one place so I can check it when I'm freaking out. And that is exactly what Monarch does for you. Managing your money doesn't have to be A struggle this year. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, budgeting accounts and investments, net worth and future planning. All of that together in one dashboard on your laptop or your phone. Start your new year on the right foot financially and get 50% off your monarch subscription with the code happier. We've just come through the holidays. That can be a bit of a messy time financially. We're spending a lot on gifts and on travel. Now is the time to rein it all in, get a good look at what's going on and then make some sane decisions. Monarch is the go to tool for a new Year's financial reset. Reviewing spending over the holidays, setting fresh budgets and getting ready for 2026 and all that it will inevitably bring. So this new year, achieve your financial goals for good. Monarch is the all in one tool that makes proactive money management simple all year long. Long. Use the code [e-mail] for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first [e-mail] with the code happier. Okay, step number four. So once you've revised your story, you need to decide how you want to be different. So this is the aforementioned to do list.

[B]

Yeah, this is where the rubber really sort of meets the road. When we've sort of filled in the blanks, we understand where we have agency, what we are actually doing that's participating in creating our own experience. We are an active player now. We're not a victim. Things haven't just been happening to us, we've been collaborating in them in some way. Whether it's the story we've been telling ourselves, that it's all our fault, or a behavior that we're doing that is contributing to whatever outcome we want to change. I think the key here is that we can't just stop doing something. I think this is a mistake. A lot of people sort of get to this point kind of intuitively or through their self help books or whatever and they think, all right, I just need to stop doing this thing. But I have never been able to just stop doing something, especially not when it's wedged into my life in a really integral way. I have to replace it with something like immediately the vacuum will just suck the old behavior right back into its place. And so I think some strategies that I've used for changing behavior and replacing one behavior with another are having little index cards, making a list of index cards with the behaviors I want to change on one side and what I want to Replace them with on the other side. And like choosing one every morning and choosing to just try to cultivate awareness of when I'm doing one and then try to replace it with the other. It's very simple, but it's really, really worked for me. The other thing is to think ahead and really look at sort of our days, like, who am I going to interact with at work? When are the opportunities for me to do things the old way gonna crop up and to not leave myself in a position where I'm gonna have to react in the moment, because I'm gonna do the old thing in the moment. That's just how it works. You know, my neural pathways are all arranged for me to do the old thing. So for me, it's really helpful to think ahead, even write out a little script for myself if it's a communicative, sort of interactive thing. I've done this with family. Things that I wanted to change where there was a particular dynamic or a kind of interaction that I was always having in my family that left me feeling miserable afterwards. And I have written out a little script of the new thing I want to say is, like, I need to take some alone time from the family so that I can enjoy the time we spend together, or something like that, right? And I think of very simple, very straightforward. I memorize it, I bring it into the situation, and I just say it as many times as I need to and really sort of setting myself up for success and not just flinging myself into a situation, hoping I'm just gonna do it differently, but to really plan ahead. And I think, you know, I hate doing this, but it's really helpful doing role plays with people. I was terrible at breaking up with people for my life. The people I was breaking up with would always talk me out of it, and somehow I would end up still in the relationships I wanted to end like it was a nightmare. I would hurt people way more doing it my way, which was avoidant. Once I started doing role plays with this one friend of mine, figuring out exactly what I was going to say, I would go into the conversation and I would actually have the outcome that I wanted. Right? And role playing is so cringy. It's really uncomfortable. But it actually does work because it builds a frame of reference that we can draw upon when we're in the actual situation. You know, they say in recovery, people, places and things are the things that sort of trigger you when it comes to addictive behaviors. And the way that sober people deal with that is they plan Ahead, they bring. Even now, I'm like 21 years sober. I still always bring a six pack of seltzer to the party. Cause I want something to drink. And now it's not because I think I'm gonna drink if I don't have it. It's just cause I want something yummy. But when I was first getting sober, I just needed something in my hand, right? So that I wouldn't pick up something else, right? And just planning ahead. Bringing a friend, writing a script, having your little index cards, whatever works. People can come up with their own strategies. But sort of having a little system in place for how we're going to replace the old behavior with a new.

[A]

Behavior, all of that makes complete sense. I was just going to say that, and I mentioned this many times on the show, so some listeners will have heard me say this, but. But I've been working for six or seven years with communications coaches, which should be a much more common thing than it is, because communication is the main unit of exchange in human affairs. And nobody really teaches us how to do it. I hate doing it too, but they force me to practice conversations. And then when I get into them, I can execute them much more skillfully.

[B]

It's really amazing. I mean, I couldn't agree more. I feel like I wish I could just assign people communication coaches like all the English professors that I work. You know, it's like people just don't. We don't learn. We just communicate the way we learned in our families, you know, and we all have these very different ways of communicating. So it's no wonder that it goes sideways so often. But, yeah, that's really interesting. Good for you.

[A]

I didn't do it because of saintly impulse. I did it because I got feedback that I was being a schmuck.

[B]

So we almost never do. But still a lot of people don't take action. Sometimes people hear you're being a schmuck, and they're like, no, you're a schmuck. And they don't do anything. So I think it takes a lot of character to hear people and take action.

[A]

Just to be clear, my initial response was, no, you're a schmuck. Everything came slowly.

[B]

Also very common, I think.

[A]

Okay, so the fifth step, and you say this is a step that people often leave out but is crucial, is to share with trusted others.

[B]

I think that's the thing. It's almost like our national ethos in many ways. We want to do things alone. We want to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. And change. I understand it, I relate to that. I was religiously self sufficient for a really long time. Change this whole process, admitting that something's wrong, admitting that you need to change, trying and failing. These are incredibly vulnerable experiences. Right? I would very, very much like to do them in total privacy and have no one witnessing me making mistakes or admitting to making mistakes, or trying and failing or resorting to my old ways and then having to recover like. Like it's so embarrassing to have someone see you in that kind of space. We're not really taught how to manage that. But it is so hard to do this alone. We're really not meant to and it just doesn't work. Every single course of change I have tried to take in my life, I tried to do it alone first and failed. Every single thing I have ever needed to change about myself, truly tried to do it alone, failed miserably. Usually a bunch of times I was like, I'll figure it out. And just failing over and over again. And now finally, I think I've been humbled enough by my experience that I know to bring other people into the process with me. And hopefully I have people in my life that I trust enough to be like, hey, I'm really struggling with something and I think I want to change it and I need to talk to somebody about that. Are you available? Maybe it's a therapist. It's kind of ideal if you can pay someone to be that person. But I've also found it's really, really so much easier to create lasting change in yourself and your life inside of a community. It is community work. And the beautiful thing is that it's mostly been my experience that when I share these kinds of struggles with other people, they identify with me. I mean, look at this conversation we've been having. Like, there's been so much identification. And these are all things I couldn't even say out loud for a really long time because I was so mortified about them. I felt like such a failure. I felt like it might just be me. So there's just very rarely going to be something that we're alone in or that other people aren't going to relate to. And when I let other people into my process of change, I develop community. It binds me closer to those people. It deepens those relationships. Like it really only does good. It's just sort of surmounting that initial resistance to it because I just want to. When I failed or I'm scared, I just want to go hide and lick my wounds. I don't Want anybody looking at me at all. But I really have never been able to do this alone. So whether it's like a group, like a formal group, like a 12 step group, trust me, there's a program for everyone. Or it could just be a group of friends or just one friend, or a therapist, a partner and a friend. The more the merrier, for sure. But at least letting one other person into the process who we can really be honest with about it has been absolutely the, like, deciding factor for me in a lot of situations.

[A]

I think you've answered this question, but a lot of people may be at home wondering, you know, what do you do if you don't have trusted others? And I think your answer is, you can pay a shrink or if that's too expensive. 12 Step is free, and they have a program for everything. And they're all over the place.

[B]

They really do. And there are all sorts of. We're social animals, right? Even if we're people who have a tendency towards isolation, as I do when I'm struggling, I want to isolate from other people, but we are instinctively drawn to move together, right? We are stronger together. And so whether it's 12 step or some other kind of group, there are so many different kinds of support groups. My dad is struggling with a degenerative memory disorder right now. He has, like, three different groups. A creativity group, a support group, another kind of activity group. Whatever it is that we're struggling with, there are so many other people who are struggling with it. We just have to find them. You know, the Internet is such an incredible resource for this. There are so many chat rooms and zoom groups, and whatever it is you're struggling with, there is a group. But I would also just encourage people. If you don't have folks that you have this kind of intimate relationship with, the only thing you have to do is initiate it. It you have people in your life, start the conversation. The worst thing that can happen is it doesn't take off. And, like, that's disappointing, but it's not the end of the world. And I think the odds of success are much greater than we think. All we have to do is share a part of ourselves that is vulnerable and that invites the other person to do so. Creating intimacy is just something we do by communicating, by sharing ourselves with others.

[A]

I completely agree. I had A interviewee recently, Dr. Ingrid Clayton, I believe her name was. She said something that's been rattling around in my brain, which is that wounding happens in relationships. Healing also happens in relationships. And.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

You just made a Strong case for it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. So given what a skilled storyteller you are, you've actually planted several narrative threads throughout the course of this conversation, which I now want to follow up on as we draw or vector toward our conclusion here. You've talked about the stories you were telling yourself at work and in your family and in relation to exercise and in relation to your relationships. And I'm curious, where's all of that sit or stand? What's the right verb there?

[B]

Now I am in multiple places of recovery. I often like to joke that I get rid of my compulsions in the order that they're gonna kill me. Like, in their order of lethality. Right. And so I had to deal with, like, the heroin and cocaine first, and then I moved on to, like, disordered eating issues. And then I've moved through relationship issues, money issues, chronic pain, obsessive exercise, workaholism. I mean, it really just goes on and on. And honestly, I don't quite know what comes next, because I have just come off of a period of huge change in my relationship to my body and chronic pain, kind of over the pandemic and since then. But what I will say is that I have been at such a low point in all of these experiences, in terms of my health, in terms of my romantic relationships, in terms of my work life, and in terms of, like, multiple kinds of addiction, where it really felt helpless, where I really thought, I will die of this. I will never get out of this. I will be unhappy for the rest of my life. I don't know what to do. And I went through some version of what we've talked about here. I've often ended up writing books about it afterwards, but usually I went through the process of change, and then I went through the process again writing a memoir about it. And I am on the other side of every single one of those experiences. I don't struggle with any of the things that I have struggled with in the past, things that plagued me for years and years and years. So I am, like, living proof that this actually works. You hear sometimes when you're out there, people say the phrase, like, people don't change. People say that all the time. And nothing has been less true in my experience. Like, sometimes people don't change for a long time. Sometimes people never change. But if people want to change, they absolutely can. They can change almost any aspect of themselves or their lives. I really, truly believe that.

[A]

I used to be an obsessive record shopper back when records and CDs were.

[B]

You know, Before, I was gonna ask, because I see the records behind you.

[A]

Yes, yes. These are all from the 90s, back when I was a young person and back when records and CDs were, like, things you had to buy before streaming services. And there was a sign at Newbury Comics, my favorite record store in Boston, Massachusetts.

[B]

Oh, are you from Massachusetts?

[A]

Yeah, I'm from Newton, Massachusetts. Are you?

[B]

Oh, interesting. I know Newton really well. I grew up on the Cape, but my mom used to split her time between the Cape and Newton, so I know it really well. I was at JP Licks last summer, so.

[A]

Yeah, the ice cream store. So where on the Cape?

[B]

Falmouth?

[A]

Yeah, sure.

[B]

Sorry, you were saying? Newberry Comics.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that was fun to learn. Newbury Comics, they had a sign over the door that would listed upcoming releases. And then some clever clerk wrote, all dates can change, so can you. That always stuck with me.

[B]

I love that. I love that.

[A]

Okay, so you. You. I just want to drill down just one click on your various personal narratives. So in Dry Season is about a year of celibacy, but you did mention a wife. So you have gotten married. So there seems like a happy ish ending there at least.

[B]

Yeah, there is a happy ending there. I was a serial monogamist for many years, but none of my relationships lasted longer than two at the very outside, three years. And that was sort of my whole adult life. And then I spent this year basically doing what I've described here, and I developed a new sort of blueprint for relationships. I was like, this is actually the person I want to be in relationships. I want to take accountability for what I actually want and need and not be following some script that I didn't choose that doesn't really have anything to do with me. And at the end of that year, I met my future wife. And of course, like, the hard work of actually being a different person happened in the context of that relationship and was really messy and scary and difficult at times. But we've been together for almost nine years now and married for five, and it's a really happy relationship. And. And I plan to be with her forever. So it really is. I mean, it was almost like, too tidy in the book. In the first version of the book, I told my editor, look, I'm not gonna write about my marriage. I'm not gonna put my wife at the end. It's like a tidy little bow. And she was like, what are you talking about? That's literally what happened. Like, you have to put it in there. So I ended up doing that, But I didn't want that to be the point because I really did want it to be about the process of change of like hitting this kind of reckoning point and deciding to do something different and really taking the time to sort of learn how to live differently and be honest with myself about who I was. Like, that was really the focus. It wasn't on the outcome. But, you know, the outcome was also amazing. Like, I kind of can't believe that it worked out the way it did, but it has.

[A]

Basel.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

And then I'm just curious. So you had this period of time where your back pain was overwhelming and then you realize it's because you were over exercising. So where are you? What's your exercise habit look like now?

[B]

Yeah, so I was a long distance runner for a really long time. Probably from 16 until I was almost 40. I would run 10 miles at a shot and it got really bad in the sort of early pandemic. I was running upwards of 50 miles a week and kind of training for a marathon that was never happening. No. And then I got a horrible sciatica and it took me a while to figure it out, but I had really violently ruptured one of my spinal discs from running. And I just had chronic pain for months and couldn't figure it out and was still running through it. Early on. I really missed having surgery, just, just barely. And anyway, it's a long story, but I just sort of came to the conclusion that it wasn't just that I was like a healthy oriented person. It was that my main mode of dealing with stress was running. And I was doing it to such an extent that I was really abusing my body. I don't run anymore. I don't run at all anymore. And I had to go through a kind of grieving period about that. But also I definitely ran a lifetime's worth by the time I was 40. Like I got my mileage in and now I do like much more sort of balanced like middle aged lady things like pilates and walking briskly uphill and weight training. So I still do get my like endorphins flowing. But I actually am oriented towards exercising for my health now. And it's okay. I'm into it. I get my thrills elsewhere. Or maybe I don't get thrills anymore, but I'm actually happy and it's worth it.

[A]

Well, this has been great. Is there anything that you were hoping we would get to that we didn't?

[B]

No. This felt really comprehensive and fun and went really fast. I Feel like we got it all in there. How about you?

[A]

I feel great about it. Yeah, you've done awesome here. Can I get you, though, to. You've referenced the dry season, but can you just give us the full bibliography before we let you go?

[B]

Yeah, sure. So my first book was a memoir called Whip Smart, which was about the three and a half years that I spent working as a professional dominatrix and a time during which I also recovered from heroin addiction. Then I wrote a book called Abandon Me, which was about a lot of things, but it included an emotionally abusive relationship and having a sea captain for a father. And my third book was Girlhood, a collection of linked essays that look at adolescence and sort of use my experience of adolescence as a kind of touchstone to look at how experiences that we have during that time sort of play out over the rest of our lives. And then I wrote a book called Bodywork, the Radical Power of Personal Narrative, which is all about writing memoir. If you are someone who is interested in memoir and do want to conduct this process through that form, this is definitely the book for you. And then finally, I wrote about the dry season, which was my year of celibacy that led to my marriage.

[A]

Amazing. How did you lose your Boston accent?

[B]

Oh, I never had a super strong Boston accent. Neither of my parents are from Massachusetts. They're both from Jersey. So I'll have, like, random words that I say in a Boston way, and then I'll have random words that I say in a Jersey way. Although the other day, my wife. I always claim I don't have a Boston accent. And then my wife was like, I don't know. I'm gonna point it out the next time I hear something. And she got me the other day, and it was extraordinary. That's an extraordinary book. And she was like, I'm pretty sure that's a Massachusetts way of saying it. Yeah. How about you?

[A]

I was a news anchor for 30 years, so I don't. It's all gone. And my dad was from Jersey. My mother was a kind of of upper crusty North Shore Boston lady who didn't have much of an accent, so. Yeah. But all the guys I grew up with, all the people I grew up with have ridiculous accents.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know if you have it too, but, like, when I was growing up, I didn't want it. And I sort of had like a now kind of embarrassing, like, superiority. Like, I don't really have it, but all these other people do. But now I absolutely love and borderline fetishize. Like, I love watching movies with Boston accent. Any movie that takes takes place in New England. I'm on it. There is something like super comforting and delightful about it to me now. So.

[A]

Yes, yes. But most of them it up. It's. Unless it's Matt Damon or Ben Affleck. Like, it's horrible to watch.

[B]

Oh yeah, I know. They're so good at it because it's, it's real. Yes, I know. I know it's true.

[A]

Well, this has been a pleasure. Thank you very much for doing it.

[B]

Oh, the pleasure is all mine. And thank you. I am a big fan of the podcast for, for actual real praise, not false praise. I actually really do love it. Like my wife and I actually discovered you over the pandemic. You had this like meditation teacher, come on and do this meditation that life was so stressful at that time. We listened to it every single day for like a year and a half. So yeah, actually a fan. And yeah, it's been an honor. So thank you.

[A]

Thanks again to Melissa Feebos. Really enjoyed talking to her. Don't forget, it's not too late to get involved with our free New Year's Meditation Challenge. Seven progressive guided meditations led by my friend Joseph Goldstein. Really a masterclass in Buddhist meditation, which is good for beginners and experienced meditators alike. You can sign up [e-mail] there you will find the instructions for downloading my new app 10% with Dan Harris. Head on over to danharris.com and get the app and join the meditation challenge. It's free and if you sign up, you'll get a 30 day free trial to check out everything we're doing on the app. Finally, just want to thank everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

[B]

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[A]

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